PREFACE.
To all who possess an interest in or a love for the horse, but little apology will be required in offering for their acceptance a work like the present. The result of much labour and research, it is an attempt to trace, for the first time in England, the origin and history of the art of shoeing horses. Since the publication, in 1831, of Bracy Clark's essay 'On the Knowledge of the Ancients respecting the Art of Shoeing the Horse,' the science of ethnological archaeology has made wonderful progress in throwing light upon much that was obscure, or altogether lost, in the darkness of pre-historic, and even historic times, and the manners and customs of ancient peoples have been largely elucidated by it. Some of its rays have been incidentally shed upon the early condition of this apparently humble handicraft, tending considerably to modify, or altogether disprove, the opinions held by various authorities as to the antiquity of horse-shoeing.
Though but of minor importance in archaeology, yet the discussion of this subject has attracted much notice at times, and engaged a large share of attention on the part of men much celebrated as antiquarians and scholars. And the origin of the art, though of comparatively little moment in an utilitarian point of view, is nevertheless one of those interesting subjects which will always prove interesting to the anthropologist and archaeologist.
To make this portion of the work complete, every discovery of relics connected with the subject has been inquired into, when possible, and no pains have been spared in the investigation of its unwritten story.
With regard to the Middle Ages, much original research has, I trust, satisfactorily brought the history forward to a period when authentic records become abundant, and these have been made sufficiently available for the purpose; while, for the succeeding centuries.
